Shakespeare never quite got to savor the swinging, singing ’60s. He was more of a ’90s guy. (As in the 1590s.)

But Intrepid Shakespeare Company, the upstart Encinitas theater devoted primarily to the works of the Bard, hears the spirit of that decade in the rhythms and romance of “A Midsummer Night’s Dream,” one of his most beloved comedies.

The music of the ’60s — or at least those tunes that Intrepid is bringing to its new, song-filled production of the work — “is about love and heartbreak and romance and magic, all those words that kept coming up” during the company’s discussions of the play, says CEO/producing artistic director Christy Yael.

So in the Intrepid show (the company’s first musical), when the fairy king Oberon (played by John Rosen) performs some hocus-pocus on his wife, Titania (Sandy Campbell), he does a take on the Screamin’ Jay Hawkins song “I Put a Spell On You,” best-known for Nina Simone’s version from 1965.

And when the young Athenian Lysander (Kevin Koppman-Gue) is motivated by a potion to fall in love with Helena (Rin Ehlers), he sings “This Magic Moment,” a hit for both the Drifters in 1960 and Jay and the Americans in 1969.

Meanwhile, the play’s “Mechanicals” — or gaggle of craftsmen and laborers — form a doo-wop group, performing tunes such as “Only You” (which was more of a ’50s tune but did receive some cover versions in the ’60s).

Yael, who is co-directing the production with Colleen Kollar Smith (a longtime Lamb’s Players Theatre ensemble member and increasingly in-demand choreographer), says she tends to look warily upon the idea of musical adaptations.

“My biggest argument with musicals is that sometimes they can detract from the storytelling,” she says. “In this case, (though), the music really underlines the magic of it.”

Seeing Kollar Smith’s choreography for “The Music Man” at Lamb’s last year was what finally convinced Yael that the musical approach could work for the Shakespeare show: “Instead of dropping music and dance on top of the show, it was all woven together so beautifully.”

So intertwined are the songs with the story in this “Midsummer” that musical director Taylor Peckham both performs the role of Puck and plays piano during the show.

The play has a bit of added meaning for Yael: She first appeared in a production in her native Canada around age 8, cast as a fairy.

“This was the play that started me as a professional actor; this was the play that began my love affair with Shakespeare,” she says. “I hadn’t looked at it in a long time, but it has a special place in my heart.”